However you square it, younger voters were key to the electoral coalition that brought Joe Biden to power in the 2020 presidential election. According to a Pew Research study published in June, those under thirty broke for Biden by some twenty-four points (59 percent to only 35 percent for Donald Trump) while voters in the same age group who had not cast a ballot in the two preceding elections broke for him 59/33. It’s no exaggeration to say that without the overwhelming support of many millennials and Gen-Zers, Joe Biden probably could not have been elected president.

It’s particularly striking, then, to see Biden’s support among voters from both generations in total free fall less than a year after his swearing in.

Just how badly have Biden and his administration fallen out of favor with the young? While Biden’s approval ratings are down across all age groups from last January, recent findings by Economist data journalist G. Elliott Morris find that the president’s scores with those under thirty and ages thirty to forty-four have dropped in staggering fashion.